fresh faced.

flicking through the pages of iCal since holiday, realized that it was probably time to write up a diary entry, so here goes;

Firstly and most obvious to me in general life at the moment, is that I am now one of those 'nine-fivers, yearly salary, tax paying, living for the weekend types'. It's funny how quickly you fall into it as you approach the near mid-twenties, something I would have laughed at a year or so ago when i was swanning around the world still taking advantage of the free student overdraft halifax stupidly allowed me. Even more surprising to me, is that it's not actually that shoddy, you always know you have money coming into the bank, you've got a role & purpose, and best of all, the weekends are all yours. However, i'm at the start of the game, im up the ladder at the moment, waiting to land on that snake.

a little while ago I re-united with tate modern and went to an exhibition called 'Exposed' Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera. This was a brilliant look through history surveying & documenting how the camera has been used to show the desire to know what is hidden. Most images had been taken without the subjects knowledge by the unseen photographer or surveillance camera, many crossing the lines of privacy. My own dissertation for uni was based on polaroid photography which i loved researching & writing, and alot of the photographers i studied featured in this show so it was nice to revise over! My favorite piece was the old gentleman's shoe which had a sly camera lens fashioned into its heel. people don't forget the forbidden images.

my original aussie friend that is sarah sweeney has been living over in london, she works mainly for sporting events & not long ago she did The Tour of Britain cycling event. Coincidentally our mutual friend Paddy Kelly aka rockstar in the making was playing at the event, so we went to the day of the final stage in the race at the docklands, london. We donned our corporate suite wristbands and enjoyed a day serenaded by paddy and looked after by sweens, free alcohol & food all in. of course I had no clue about cycling itself, couldn't tell you who won, but do remember an excitable commentator proclaiming "hup hup hup" whenever the bikes flew past and the sun shone beautifully for the last i saw of the english summer. not long after the event my dear sweeney was to leave us to go back to oz for the warm season (smart girl). I went to her flat the following week for a send-off & to consume the ridiculous amounts of free wine she had left from the tour. basically it was me, and about 15 australian girls that had come out of london's woodworks and congregated in a lounge in clapham, loved it! great night, followed by a very entertaining morning as we got up at 6am not long after falling asleep to wonder the streets & find a pub that was showing the AFL grand final game. because of the time difference not many pubs got involved, but we finally arrived at The Clapham Grand apparently 'late' at 7.30 in the morning and sat amongst, which i can only believe, was ALL of the aussie population that possibly could have been in the city and cheered on our team, St.Kilda. unfortunately it was a draw and both teams would have to play all over again next week! "WTF?" was exclaimed a great deal, probably trended on twitter.

i saw so much live music when i was away that i started to get withdrawal symptoms recently, so my mate Ted suggested we go to the Underbelly in Hoxton Square to see a canadian band called Brasstronaut, who were on their first european tour. I've literally never seen so many & such an unusual array of instruments all played together simultaneously, but they sounded amazing so fairplay! We verbalized our love to the lead singer before they scuttled off to sleep with jet lag on their first night in london.

A blog wouldn't be valid now im home, without a little mention of southampton. Sophie edwards, one of our girls in our sixsome has just got her own gorgeous little flat in southy, so we went down to christen it. We went back to the original Junk Club that we used to drink & skank in (think dance move not drug move) back in the day. It was actually a weekend of the past, as I also went out the following eve for my friends birthday & all of us who used to live in uni hall's of res together to Unit. definitely missed team90 wilton avenue, mad to see the originals and cant wait for the next sesh. a second visit was also made back to soph's more recently for a party in the ocean village flats with a load of crazy rum-drinking sailors who are the 'Mersea lot' and i fail to have a bad night in their company. Its actually the first time i've arrived on a night out via boat as we crossed the river solent by ferry to get there! each and every visit to soton is always finished by a big sunday roast with mates in a local pub and each and every time i don't want to leave very much.

This weekend just gone I worked with my company, Fresh Academy, at Britain's Next Top Model Live @the Excel. It was the first year that they had run the event so we weren't really sure what to expect, but the turn out was great & it was really busy. The girl who came 4th and was the public's favorite in the competition, Charlotte Holmes, launched her career through our studio so it was pretty good exposure for us & she popped over to our stand as much as she could without getting mobbed on her journey over! We will be working at the Clothes Show Live @the NEC for the full week in early december so looking forward to that. We had the BBC filming in the studio the other week too for a series that's being broadcasted early next year so I enjoyed hanging around with the team watching the cuts for that. I am now on the 11th of 12 straight working days, so yeah working hard!

Last night I popped to Oxford Street with the girls to buy a winter coat, which i haven't needed in a couple of years so it was quite the occasion! I found all my scarf's, gloves, mitten's and all things warm tucked up in the loft, moved them into my wardrobe and now i'm ready & dreaming of a white christmas, if you please santa x